Forty seven farmers were rounded up by armed police, Brimob, forestry company staff and hired thugs in a November pre-dawn raid on Cibaliung village, Banten province, Java. Some were handcuffed and beaten during the forcible eviction from land now claimed by privatised forestry company, PT Perhutani. The farmers were denied access to lawyers. The evictions went ahead even though the Cibaliung farmers have documented proof of ownership of the land and pay taxes on it.

A decision to suspend the certification of teak plantations in Java has highlighted major problems with the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) eco-labelling scheme in Indonesia.

In August, the FSC-accredited certifier, Smartwood - a programme of the US-based Rainforest Alliance - announced its decision to suspend the certificates of four of five plantations managed by PT Perhutani: Cepu, Kebonharjo and Kendal in Central Java and Madiun in East Java. In total, five teak and one pine plantation had been certified by Smartwood.

The prospect of widespread planting of genetically modified crops in Indonesia is causing alarm.

In September, 72 Indonesian NGOs grouped under the NGO Coalition for Biosafety and Food Safety lost their legal challenge against the Indonesian minister for agriculture, Bungaran Saragih, and PT Monagro, the Indonesian subsidiary of US-based biotechnology multinational, Monsanto. The NGO court case was aimed at annulling an agriculture ministry decree issued February 2001 (No.

Despite a poor social and environmental record across the globe, commercial aquaculture - intensive fish-farming - is still regarded as having a bright future in Indonesia. According to former marine affairs minister Sarwono, of Indonesia's total fish production, 82% is from capture fisheries. "We need to push for aquaculture to boost fish production" he told a March workshop.

A large proportion of Indonesia's farmers - especially outside Java - are organic farmers simply because they were not targeted or did not participate in the "green revolution" and are continuing traditional methods of farming. In other areas, farmers could no longer afford pesticides and fertilisers when prices shot up as a result of the economic crisis. This meant that arguments for organic farming methods started making a lot of sense.